Who's Driving the Bus

We are not conscious of what we are not conscious of. If you pick any start time and call it zero, you will not be conscious of that "zero time" event for ½ second. That is the lesson of the 1/2 second delay.

That being said and taking my little straw through which to see and flashlight to light my way, I went to look behind Oz’s curtain.

One of the human anatomy lab classes I had required me to dissect, with three lab partners, a human body. That experience was one of Dr. Phil’s “life changing moments” for me. I was in the lab every extra minute I had. I don’t think I did very well in that 8:00 am anatomy lecture; but, I got an "A" in that lab.

She was a 96 year old woman who passed from heart/lung issues. She gave her physical remains so I could learn of what stuff we are made. This was one of the most serious and formative educational experiences I ever experienced. She was from LA and smoked 80 of those 96 years. With respect and great care we located and evaluated each of her parts down to the smallest detail. All of her parts were there. Why did she stop working? Hell, why did she work in the first place?  

Life brings a quality to the matter it manifests; a quality that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a capability to resist decaying into equilibrium.

What is it that resists? The living cell is the seat of life. We see the effects of life; but, where is the life itself? Is it the DNA? Well, no, it isn’t. DNA doesn’t think. DNA is the cells parts store; and, an automated parts store at that. If not the DNA, where are the “brains” of the cell? Where else in the cell could the controller be? The work of Dr. Bruce Lipton has shown the brain of the cell is actually the membrane (cell wall), within which the living cell contains its components. There are resources, structures and molecular machines within. No sign of a choice maker, only choice implementers.

Epigenetic:

As it turns out, control is not in any living cell at all. Control comes from the context within which the cell resides. It's the environment that directs the mechanism that is the cell.

I've loved physics all my life. Was a member of a national award winning physics club in high school. I remember Uncle Al once said:

The influence of the field, the environment or context is not just the water in which we swim, it is the determining agent in every action we do, all the way down to the cellular level and beyond. This is true on every scale. Now, a touch of humor.

There are tons of tools in this post.

Just Say No.

Just Say No. Literally, our only conscious choice, Really!

This has nothing to do with former first lady Nancy Regan.

What? Conscious participation in creation of the moment boils down to NO? 

In the moment of now, we are not conscious. 

That takes at least a half second to occur. Last post established this fact. When the light bulb lit up and I got how this works, WOW!

Sub-consciousness is the 50,000,000 bit/sec gorilla in the room. Little 50 bits/sec consciousness is not able to cause any action to happen. Does this surprise you? It did me!

The only tool consciousness has, in expressing any action, is the veto.

Again, the proof of this is illuminated by it's timing. "Readiness Potential" is an expanding energy expression presented by the brain, resulting in the potential for a continuum of action. This expansion in amplitude, if not vetoed, will lead to action. Whether it's a simple or complex action, it begins before we are aware we’re going to do or perceive anything at all. The only influence we have to alter the act, occurs .02 of a second before said act. That is the afore mentioned power to VETO.

At 50 bits/sec, the amount of information consciously available to the actor in the moment is limited at best. I once heard consciousness described as a person standing in the middle of the Dallas Cowboy football stadium, in the pitch black dark. This person has one eye closed and is looking through a straw with the other eye to find his way. The only light he has is a flashlight. Everything he would ever need is right there, he just has to find it and then remember where it is if he or she ever needs that information again.

What the sub-consciousness does and can be trained to do is the gift within this. The limitation of bone makes it possible for the miracle of skeletal muscle to perform its miraculous act. The fact that limitations are an asset must be considered as each limitation's primary function. Limitations are all a form of a tool.

If you're struggling with your limitations, look first at how they serve you.

How the Computer Won Jeopardy

Not to keep you wondering, the reason the computer won the Jeopardy game with the people: the computer had a half second head start. That’s right, an entire half second. This is significant in so many ways to the composition of now.

Oh yes, that is what I'm saying. What we perceive as here/now, happened no less than ½ second ago. What happens in that ½ second becomes the systematic illusion, perceived as now. Understanding this process is invaluable for anyone wanting to perform the act of, anything. A powerful tool, if you know what to do with that half second.

Here’s the story of the chart:

This research started by attempting to time the biological process of stimuli/perception that leads to conscious awareness. Along this path, researchers were running into temporal anomalies. The timing wasn’t adding up  as expected.

So, instead of poking the subject in the finger, they found a way to poke the location inside the brain, during open skull surgery, that "lights up" when the subject's finger was poked. They found that whether the stimuli occurred on the finger or inside the brain, it took ½ second for the participant to become consciously aware of said stimulus.

In further research, while attempting to determine when the participant believed he or she experienced said stimulus, the subject perceived that time span as eight one hundredths of a second. Researchers call this a “backward referral of subjective experience.”

In review: an event occurs, marked as zero or start time. A process apparently ensues that, resulting in conscious awareness of said past event occurring that pesky 1/2 second earlier.

Conclusion: each of us quite literately writes the play we are playing. By necessity, we write ourselves as the central role. The character you write for yourself could be hero or villain; however, you are always the central character.

Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you. This is what happens in that silly little half second. You are writing and producing your "Now" play. It goes on at one half second o'clock. At the price of being boring some times, it never fails to be open when your conscious is on.

This research was conducted by Dr. Benjamin Libet. His work during the mid 1970s through the 1980s is fundamental to current understanding of the timing of consciousness. His open brain experiments have been duplicated 100s of time and are widely accepted in the neurological science community. This fellow’s story is amazing.

This truth, as a tool, is a double edge sword. It cuts both ways and requires the utmost respect to use. More on this as a tool later.

In the sixties and seventies it was not legal to do this research, as it was linked to subliminal advertising. The U.S. governments tried to control and even expunge this information from the public knowing. Can you say “FEAR!”

Before I close today’s post, I’d like to check the score on concepts so far:

“Here/Now,” expressed as the present.

“Perception,” expresses witness.

“Time – Space – Matter – Energy,” expressing continuing creation.

“Self – other than Self,” expressing the concept that there is an out there,

          out there.

“Bandwidth,” expressed as measurable units of information,

          having a flow rate and volume.

“Consciousness” (50 bits/sec) and

“Sub-consciousness” (50,000,000 bits/sec) expressing one being.

“The Half Second Delay,” is expressed as the length of time it takes

          for a here/now present event, to be experienced consciously.

When I add about this many more concepts, it will add up to one single idea worth talking about. No, REALLY.

A Window into the Past - 1978

My wife suggested I post this.

It is the first chapter of the work I did in 1978.
This was lost in the flood of 97' in Ashland, OR and recently found.
The audience would have been a young theatre artist just beginning their search.
This is what I so wanted to share and talk about back then. Do you remember me then?

What a flash! For your amusement and edification and thanks for visiting. Viva La 70's.

______________________________________________________
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The Transparent Actor
June 1978
A Holistic Perspective
by Patrick B. Chew
                                                                                                            

Chapter One:

Understanding the Here/Now

"There are many ways to approach the task of acting. There are as many valid professional methods of success as there are successful professional actors. This fact can make the task of the student actor, aspiring to be professional, a very personal struggle with the very fabric from which we are made. It must be clear that the study of acting is very much the study of one’s self. In a QUALITY characterization one can manipulate ones traits, deeds, and communications to the very specific demands of an artificial situation as if such continuums were truth. To the quality professional actor in the moment, it is truth. The situation is real and the events are heartfelt. The student actor seeking such a level of excellence must develop keen skills in self expression and self awareness.

The writings that follow are not an attempt to tell you how to act or how I act or how Stanislavsky acted. I seek to share tools, observations, images, concepts, ideas, exercises that I have collected in my personal struggle for an understanding of acting. It is my hope, if the reader is a professional or student actor, that you apply these tools and find them useful and enriching to your craft.

It is my belief that the most efficient starting point to learn acting is to explore the human experience of the instant of Here/Now. Not past nor future, history or projection; but right in the middle of the split instance life is lived. A person can witness a movie and be entertained and astounded, but that makers of the film had to create the film frame by frame. Life is a fluid continuum of experience which is far more complex that the series of stills that is a motion picture. I will try to introduce the majority of variables that comprise the here/now experience of life and then explore how these variables holistically work together to create ever changing continuums of experience.

Here/Now is a common experience we all share, yet few give it much attention. Most folks focus their consciousness on past, present (but not here/now), and future. That inner monologue, chattering away every waking hour. We seem strongly indoctrinated as a culture, to believe only in experience that fits into words or continuums of words. Most are taught to exclude as fiction all qualities of experience that cannot easily be put into words or symbols. If it is not conveniently in our belief system it does not exist. I am here to tell you this is not the case. Words are simply too slow. They take time in continuum to convey a message.

Meaningful communication solely through words is a slow process; hence, the actor may start living the mere creation of the symbols rather than the appropriate quality of life experience. Controlling at will, the qualities of one’s life experience has become the foundation for this study of the professional task of acting. One can talk about the past and plan for the future; however, one can only experience here/now.

I have found here/now to be the ring in which acting takes place. The following are some images that have helped me in understand here/now as a useful concept:

1.     The WHOLE is greater than the sum of the parts.

2.     Let all stimuli flow through you rather than confronting it. Don’t judge. Experience!

3.     All illusion works for a reason. Know the reason and the illusion becomes a tool.

4.     The WHOLE: Principles within self are the same as in the entire universe. Know yourself and you know the universe.

5.     Call it a limitation and that is what it is!

6.     Experience is not what happens to you, but rather what you do with what happens to you.

7.     As you perceive it, so it is.

8.     There is no right or wrong! Only what doesn’t work, what works, or what works better!

Actors working under these assumptions develop an awareness ore feeling for, what I call “the truth” of any given here/now experience. The truth is simply what is! It cannot be judged, only experienced.

In theatre, the playwright creates a continuum of stimuli for the actor to experience. The playwright creates the truth and the actor renders this continuum of truth with his or her life. In a performance situation, the actor must be able to create and react off the given stimuli in the split instant it is intended, with no time to think. If the actor has to think of what to do, that moment of thinking is placed in the past, unused, dead air. Here/now, one can only do one thing. If the actor is thinking, that is what the audience sees no matter what the actor believes the audience is seeing. Each time this happens, there is a distracting licker in the texture of the piece as a whole. This is why I feel an actor should be aware whether he or she is delivering the mere symbols of the playwright or actually giving the here/now living experience offered by the play. I might add, rehearsal is for thinking, performance is for doing.

The word “holistic” represents the realm of thought and philosophy that tries to understand how whole systems can work together to create continuums of experience, within the limitations of time and space. The human body is such a system; experiencing life here on this planet between birth and death.

A play is such a system; creating for the one experiencing it, a continuum on the stage or wherever, between the opening and closing of the curtains. Economics, Government, Culture, Food Production, Sex, Chemistry, Physics, Language, Educational Systems; all these systems exist within the limits of time and space, having given experiential qualities. When an individual goes through such a system of experience, by choice, he or she intends to alter in some predetermined way, the quality of their experience here/now. Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you. This brings up the complex question of control which I will deal with specifically in a later chapter.

The word “holistic” comes from the Greek word “holos” meaning whole. It is also derived from the idea of holism, “That which emphasizes the organic or functional relationship between parts and wholes." 1 The play is a whole system and the actors are the parts that work in relationship to each other to create the whole here/now experience perceived by the individual audience member. The work holistic is defined as, “The theory that whole entities, as fundamental and determining components of reality, have and existence more than the mere sum of their parts." 2 When a play is truly working, this magical more is experienced by actors and audience alike; however, I am sure we have all experienced our share of plays that didn’t work as a whole. Some parts worked and some didn’t. In an artificial system such as a play, when one part isn’t working right, it affects the whole system. When the system works together as a coherent organization of parts, the quality of the experience is good. As parts falter, the quality declines. In theatre, quality of experience is a big thing! It’s what we sell!

It is within the recesses of the actor that the quality of experience happens. That is what creates a play. Hence, the actor’s body is her or her greatest resource. Holistic philosophy considers the body a dynamic energy system in a constant state of change. However, human beings have shown themselves to be more than just their bodies. Each is a complex balance of mental, physical, and spiritual aspects that are integrated into one’s indivisible experience of here/now. Each body affects and directly is affected by environmental and social factors. The mind/body/spirit cannot be fragmented or isolated in two parts, for it is a single, constantly changing continuum of experience; a group of systems, working as one. It is only when we intentionally limit here/now, that we can focus on only part of the whole. This is a tool. Experiencing life within the limitations of these systems I’ve mentioned is how this abstraction can take place.

A holistic approach to acting is based on the assumption that a human system, as an integrated and organic whole, has a reality independent of its physical parts. This greater reality cannot be perceived or understood until there exists an awareness of many of the components which help to create the whole human system. Place yourself as the whole entity in question. The following are some facts about the way human being perceive their experiences. They might help you in beginning to explore the style of acting.

Modern behavioral Science has discovered a marked difference between the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The left brain, controlling the right side of the body; also controls the logical, intellectual, word, and time oriented side of self. The right brain, controlling the left side of the body; also conducts the actor, dancer, lover, artist, open, deathless side of self. Though both sides of the brain have different functions, the two focus with the rest of the bodily systems to create the single expression of an integrated entity working toward a common goal. Some “one” is pulling your strings. Is it you?

An understanding of these two modalities of the brain is a very important tool for the actor creating a role. For example, European styles of actor training have developed as a left brain process involving highly refined techniques. American actor training seems to come more from the right brain and it’s ability to understand the inner self and its expression. In such cases only one side of the brain is fully developed, while the other side is left to its intuitive best to keep up. The less aware or experience the performer is, the more evident this imbalance becomes. Neither style of actor training can fully prepare the actor to live a whole experience on stage. Such training allows the actor to deliver only part of the living message intended for the audience by the playwright. Large parts get lost, altered, or left out entirely as it travels from the playwright’s mind, through the written word, through a director’s concept, dragged under an actors craft and skill to finally arrive at the senses of the audience. It is the actor’s challenge to bring life to the written word, despite all the limitations between the playwright’s imagination and it’s fulfillment in the actors for the audience. A noble quest since most people can barely bring life to the spoken words of day-to-day living.

So, what is “Acting?” Viola Spolin opens her book, “Improvisation for the Theatre”: “Creative experience. Everyone can act. Everyone who wishes to, can play in the theatre and become stage worth.” Shakespeare wrote in his play, “As You Like It”: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women on it is merely players”. Neva L. Boyd states in her book, “Play; A Unique Experience": “Playing a game is psychologically different in degree, but not in kind from dramatic acting. The ability to create a situation imaginatively and to play a role in it is a tremendous experience, a kind of vacation from one’s everyday living. We observe that the psychological freedom creates a condition in which potentialities are released in the spontaneous effort to meet the demands of the situation." I personally feel that the acting experience is a here/now life experience, following the same rules and limitations.

A play is a predetermined continuum of here/now experience. To be better able to communicate such an experience, the actor should be aware of the three interwoven levels of communication. The first: interpersonal communication, which is totally within self, but can be perceived by others sensitive to body language, energy, etc. The second: interpersonal communication, which is conventional languages or organized systems of symbols representing common experience between persons. The third: transpersonal communication, which is the ability to perceive inside and outside one’s self without the use of the five senses. This is the level at which ESP and such experience takes place. All humans are active on all three levels all the time. Since actors are for the most part human, they would do well to gain an understanding of these three levels and how these levels express themselves. Interpersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal ways of communicating are apparently all quite different. The actor should express the playwright’s message on all three levels, for it is the synthesis of the three which creates the message received by the audience. Since the actor must transmit on all three levels, the quality of the performance as a whole will be altered, if all levels aren’t sending the appropriate information, to communicate the intended message. If an actor is saying his or her lines and thinking about the party after the show, or feeling the pizza for dinner, or is upset about some other issue, this person is altering the intended message in a perceivable way, hence lowering the quality of the production as a whole. A high quality production is a delicate fabric of living experience intended to entertain or enlighten its audience as it floats before them.

Groups working with a holistic approach to acting would deal with problem solving the expansion of personal and group consciousness. Whatever the game, exercise, or technique used, each must also include these four principles:


1.The release of unexpressed feelings or emotions.


2. Centering the mind/body/spirit to a neutral state, hence creating a place to work from and back to.


3. Focusing on the development of new behavioral or motor reflex patterns for character or self.


4. Development of a self-selected belief system based on actual feeling, living, experience. (A belief system is an abstract organization of symbols and experiences which represent that individual’s concept of truth, whether it’s true or not.)

The goal of any holistic exercise must be the development of one’s center, ego strengths, perceptual awareness, empathetic response, communication techniques, social and human skills, and to heighten one’s intuition about the nature of others.

The following chapters will explore the individual’s experience of life as perceived through the trinity of the mind/body/spirit at the instant of here/now. For I have come to believe it is in this state of being that acting and life take place."

Love Note to Ruby

In my first post, a friend thought I was taking Ruby Cohen's name in vane. I went back and re-read what I had written. It did sound a bit disrespectful; but, that was not my intention. I was calling fire ..... fire.


She was a harsh and honest critic of the world. She had the chops, with a world of experience to back her up. Her reserved passion was a well of knowing, cherished by my fellow student as well as myself. We went to her with questions, like some kind of oracle. Sometimes we'd find what we were looking for and sometimes we'd get our heads served to us on a plater. It wasn't fatal, so we'd stick our heads back on and come back for more. She was a formative influence for which I am grateful. 


Ruby was the life-partner of playwright and theatre artist, Samuel Beckett. The path they shared was a gift to the world.


Peace be with you Ruby.

In Search of Common Terms

If I were writing a book, I would save these next few concepts until the end. If I were teaching a class I would want to build the foundation for these concepts, before I put the last shingle metaphorically on top of the house. I'm not.


Before I got into theatre, I was a very good wrestler, if I do say so myself. Got into college on my physical prowess, not my SAT's. 


As it turns out, what I was so good at was training my body to do an action, without thinking. As an athlete, when the race starts, you run. When the starting pistol fires you don't think about the definition of running, you run. When the environment was right, the action happened. The required dance was performed. In wrestling, you and your opponent write the script in unison. The rules and mat are the context.


I was easily able to make the transition to theatre from wrestling because very little was different. The physical context changed, but, there were still performers and audience. Words were added to the performance and the opponent became the playwright.


From the first time I walked on stage, I was confounded at how similar were the two experiences. After performing at a high level in wrestling, I had no words to describe why. I didn't need them to perform. When I went into theatre, the word stream in my head wanted to know how and why. "I" wanted to control "Me." My first several plays, I tried to consciously control the performance and I sucked. I discovered it was uncontrollable. If I was thinking about what I should be doing, that means I am not doing the character I was supposed to be doing. At the time, I did not know the audience could see the lost wanna be actor and not the character intended by the playwright. One cannot count steps and dance at the same time.


The only path to a positive outcome was to prepare really well, show up and keep "I" out of the way to let "Me" do my job. The question became; "Why is this true and how does this process work?"


As I said earlier, if we are going to have a fruitful discussion, we must speak a common language. Today's post would like to introduce into the discussion: bandwidth, consciousness vs. sub-consciousness and timing.

Bandwidth:

As a unit of measure, a bit can be thought of like the top of a sine wave. As an example, consciousness  has a frequency capacity of occurring 50 times or bits in one second. A bit is measurable and observable. Knowing this is a powerful tool.


Consciousness vs. Sub-consciousness:

At the risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld:

From "Psycho" by Alfred Hitchcock

No one was harmed in the making of this last slide. Much more on this down the road.

Timing:

How often have you heard that in a theatre? Well, truer words were never spoken. Common knowledge would have you believe that the moving picture we see in our head as here/now is just that; a linear cumulative progression to which we are constant witness to it's passing. We don't appear to work that way. 


A line of fascinating brain research indicates that there is a half second delay between the time of an event and the individual becoming conscious of that event.

The significance of this to the actor, musician, athlete, teacher, lawyer; really, anyone performing the act of, can hardly be measured.


I am going to go into these issues in much greater depth in another posting. I want to get the cards on the table, then we can play with them.

The Field, Context or Environment

The first several postings will attempt to come to common terms. Once we have a common language, we will get to the really fun stuff.

I imagine the empty universe, before the big bang, was much like a dark and empty stage. Such space is as a black abyss with infinite potential. In an empty universe before "isness" existed. In that split instance of creation time, space, matter and energy came into being. I remember that from 8th grade science. I bring it up now for a point.

The first actor on the universal stage; matter, ushered into existence measurable TIME.

At that same instance, quantifiable SPACE came into being.


The expression of matter, in space through time is energy. That is to say, the expression of energy, in space through time is matter. Remember all that, wavey and particley stuff from theoretical physics? There is a continuing cycle of creation and decay into equilibrium. 


This is the reality of stuff. Once it has aquired the status of  "isness", stuff has only decay to which it might look forward. 


From chaos is born the order that is stuff. Through stuff's continuum in that same chaos that gave it birth, the order that is stuff decays back into equilibrium. Only to again be swept up by chaos and fused into some order once again. 


To our mind's eye in the fog of now, it all appears fluid and homogenous. All is not as it appears. All is, as it is.  


Thanks again uncle Albert for help with the words.

We now have a starting point: the Big Bang. With this incredible expression of energy, matter was born into time/space. These four components (time, space, matter and energy) comprise the creation matrix of the ancient Sumarians. My research has found these "old boys" had it right a long time ago.

We add to this mix, perception. This might imply complex beings and it may not. This is one of those unknowable things I was talking about. Well, no matter when perception came into being, it is here now. 

The last component of this context is the concept of self and other-than-self.

  The universal stage is now set and ready for the passion play to begin.

Tools

Drawing back the curtain to see how the Wizard of Oz did what he did, changed how Dorothy perceived and interacted with him. I've been trying to pull back the curtain on the visual or systematic illusion of own existence. (See post 10/27/2011) The play that plays in our head. The voice that constantly chatters in the  background, like some narrator of your life. The environment that drives our choices and being. 


There are tools in this somewhere. Tools an actor must have and tools I think should be added to a teacher's tool kit as well. 


A tool is an instrument (physical or not), that resolves a problem or elevates an obstruction (physical or not). A toy is an instrument (Physical or not), that provides entertainment or education (physical or not).


Microscopes allow us to look at the really small and close together. Telescopes allow us to look at the really big and far apart. This "blogoscope" wants to focus on what occupies the middle ground in this analogy.  

When on a Journey, Keep a Journal

For some 40 years now, I have been following several lines of research, exploring how we humans perceive and experience our own existence. I've been trying to understand things from the inside out.


The acting profession requires of its practitioners, the ability to manipulate the levers of control within their human instrument they experience as "now." I guess we all pursue this on some level, in our own area of expertise; however, in theatre that "now" is premeditated and replicated. Or is it?


I was a freshman in college and the Theatre Dept. was doing the play "The Women." For some unexplained reason, I was drawn to the theatre that quarter. I discovered that my technical capabilities could be used in the theatre. Thanks dad, for teaching me to use tools.


After a career ending injury in wrestling, I lost my wrestling scholarship. I could not afford to continue and had only one quarter left on my scholarship.


Swallowing enormous fear, I auditioned and was cast. I began to focus on understanding the act of communicating. This was in the mid 70's.  This course has continued down a road of discovery lasting more than 40 years. It was my great fortune to have performed, using these tools from time to time. I never tried much to share what I found. It's now time.


New discoveries have blended with old knowing, igniting a desire to share. All of human knowing up to 1900, doubled in the next hundred years. Soon, it will be doubling every eighteen months. What good is the knowing, if it doesn't help in the doing. Integrating the new into my old head has been a joy I want to share a bit. So here we go!


As an undergraduate, I did my senior project studying the integrated holistic nature of the environment, field or physical context on stage. I produced a play. Part of the craft of theatre is to manifest the playwright's prescribed environment in the black abyss of the stage. The play was "Oedipus" by Seneca. 


Taking a general systems approach, I individually evaluated each of the variables of the whole experience I was able to isolate. I attempted to understand how to articulate each of these aspects, its constants and variables. At that point, I had not considered the actor as part of that environment. The costume: Yes. The "being" of the actor: No. I had a complex view of the relationships between characters. I just didn't have the perspective to see how it all fit together. I kept looking. I'm still looking.


I made my way to graduate school to study acting and scenic design. It was a three year MFA program and what a ride.


I found myself in a class taught by Dr. Jim Polidora, Chair of the College of Neurology at the School of Medicine at U.C. Davis, CA. The class was titled "Biology of the Mind/Body." It opened a window into a world I had experience in, but for which I had no words. The class dealt with holistic and integrated living beings. We explored the relationship between individual bodily systems and the body as a whole living being, operating in space through time.  


This work was cutting edge in the Neurology  Department in 1977. In the Department of Dramatic Art however, it was heresy. The Newtonian - Cartesian model of the world was completely unshakable. When none of my graduate advisers chose to attend my presentation, I was branded a heretic.


I did complete my MFA; however, I quit trying to share my findings with the established theatre scholars. Prof. Ruby Cohen was far less than supportive and convinced me scholars were not where I would find help discovering the right words. We are not conscious of what we are not conscious of. Ruby didn't get it and I didn't have the right words to tell her my perception or they were the right words; just not for her. No judgement.


I went on my way. Professionally acted for a while. I directed from time to time. I never lost my curiosity about how people do, what people do. The question to be answered: how do we perform the act of?


I see the craft of theatre art as the artful manipulation of human and contextual variables, rendering a script with the fabrics of life. I have not stopped searching for a better understanding of these variables and how to better articulate them.


From an actor's perspective, the variables I refer to are the qualities of our existence that we share in common. The macro-state of human existence. Everyman, not any specific man. That's the stuff of all actors. 


Then there is what makes each one unique in all the universe. This is the land of characters. How can the actor manipulate his or her "variables" to articulate a specific character? Big question. That same question is asked by the 10 year old boy when he gets up in the morning. What character do I need to put on to make it through the day or play? 


I intend to share. I won't spend much time on exposition, just enough to set the stage for the message I want to share and talk about. 


In the creative process there is no right or wrong. There is only what doesn't work, what works and what works better. This has been a creative journey and I invite you to drop in from time to time. What I've found is cool and might interest you.

The Composition of Now

THANK YOU FOR YOUR VISIT!


This blog begins as a journey with a theme and a goal; however, it has no predetermined destination. If there is a lesson in this, we will learn it together. If there are tools in this we will share in their gifts together. 


One goal is to find where I might best serve in the world, now. I hope to find words to share the accumulated gifts life has bestowed upon me. Our time will pass. The world will pass on to those who follow. If we do not share our gifts, those who follow will not be lifted by our passing. I would choose to share, if that choice is discovered on my path.


My chosen path was that of a theatre artist. My exploration of acting, back in the 70's, has gained a revived resonance for me. Tremendous similarities between the challenge the actor faces in the work place and that of a teacher. The realities we will explore and the tools presented apply to anyone challenged to perform the act of... anything.


Posting Rules I will follow:

I am my own editor, so posts will be re-crafted in support of "truthyness," spelling, grammar, until each post express the desired intention.

"Be impeccable with my word.

Take nothing personally.

Do my best.

Assume nothing." (Thank You Toltec civilization) 

Mutual Respect (See Post: 12/25/2011)


Be conversational - Like telling a friend a story.


Have supporting materials reasonably available, but not at the cost of effectively telling the story.


This blog is a participation sport. Respond to each serious comment.

To all of you that join me for a visit or follow the journey, THANK YOU for your time and friendship.